


Run, Girl, Run

by Kold



Category: The Mummy (2017), The Mummy Series
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/F, Gore, Horror, Inspired by Outlast Whistleblower, Multi, Nick and Jenny are married here, Supernatural Elements, ahmanet is Eddie gluskin, but Nick doesn't appear, first person POV, jenny is Waylon, nick is lisa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2018-12-13 10:42:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 19,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11758158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kold/pseuds/Kold
Summary: Jennifer Halsey works at a mental hospital built somewhere in the middle of the desert. Except she doesn't really work there. She must be the world worst whistleblower because before she could document all the abuse that goes on behind those doors... they catch her. Fortunately - and unfortunately - there's a blackout that occurres at the right time.





	1. Dead On Arrival

They're listening. I am guilty but no one knows. I write it down, with only incognito mode and anti-hacking extensions on my side. When I wasn't struggling to get this email ready - I was closing and opening the other tab. One touch (because I was using an IPad) will the screen become black, with blinking and glowing cryptic words. Aligned in a way that will send me to the electric chair on arrival. But I haven't been caught yet, though my _Whistleblower Paranoia Disorder_ tells me otherwise. It is triggered when I'm interrupted. D.O.A...D.O.A... My name was mentioned and I'm reminded of my corporal self. No longer text on a screen but a human in over her head badly.

Obnoxious smile, dusty beard. Telling me he needs my help with something. I beg him: "please Henry, I'm on break". Henry promises it will be quick, whatever it was. My iPad's screen timed out and I let it be, knowing a four digit password locked it upon shut down. My cubicle's work desk had several homogenous drawers packed with papers. One of which I inconspicuously slipped the device in. If it was a laptop I would have shoved it into an air vent. A laptop would also have firewall protection and better overall security.

Henry needed help fixing a patient's bodycam. As I am lead down halls and halls of caged women, I wonder, 'which one?". As a web designer and engineer, this was a common request of me. Though I'm nary comfortable in the company of the patients. Especially now as a handful of them were being strip-searched in front of me. Like being in a lockeroom after high school P.E. all over again. Only louder and smellier.

"It's not like the movies. Nymphomaniacs with daddy issues, that's all they are."

Henry reassures me, noticing my twitching hands and flaring nostrils. I know I was being unprofessional. And judging mental patients who were just average people with bad childhoods. To be honest it was solely the haunting thought that I was found out that made me shake. Like the prison guards were just toying with me and out of nowhere throw me to the side. We were in a mental hospital in the middle of the desert. No one would hear me scream except for the what lurks beyond the supernatural.

"Doctor, we need help quick." One of the goons approaches Henry the minute I sit down at the machine I'm to be fixing. From what I heard, one of the patients broke free while she was being strip-searched. If I was the world's worst whistleblower, this was the world's worst institute. A kennel had better caretakers.

Very quickly I repaired the bodycam. The man behind the barrier of glass applauded me in a way I didn't deserve. With one hand I pointed up my thumb to him and smiled - with the other I plugged in my flash drive to the modem below where the glass ended, where he couldn't see. My own personal spy camera appeared on the big screen before me. I am given full 360 degrees of vision of all that was behind the glass wall. Including that clapping man, who I now am just seeing has a ready taser on his person. Jennifer, you must be teeming with distress right now because he too needed to ask me if I'm okay. Even though I tell him yes, I'm being met with more reassurance akin to earlier. 'These girls are relatively harmless' he says. He heard something, I imagined. I hear it too; a screaming woman, afraid and angry, fighting against whoever is holding her down.

He ran south from where he stood impulsively. "Except that one!"

My skin pricked until my small arm hairs became needles. Like a porcupine in defense. A shadowy figure runs around on the cam. She gets closer and closer until she splats herself on the glass. My face is met with breast blue from suppression.

**Filth! Vermin! Pox on your fucking chains! You can't keep me here, stupid rats... Stop them! They're trying to bury me! I'm going to get buried, _help me_!**

My eye rise up to her face. She looks as scared as me. Our eye contact is long and awkward, even more so after my fear outlives hers. She calms at the sight of me, too calm, as a hoard of men are dragging her backwards. Her gaze never left me as they chained her arms. Her gaze never left me as they muzzled her. A cotton piece of cloth was pinned against her parted lips and was supported by rubber strings around her brown ears.

Someone laughs near my cheek, "don't tell your husband. But I think she likes you."

Fantasizing about cheating on Nick with another woman was funny to me, but I scoffed at his comment. Jerry was the most annoying coworker I've ever had to deal with. Fitting as this is an annoying job. I rather annoying than antagonizing, however, I think as Ben whispers in my other cheek. He dismisses me as coward, as someone who shouldn't work here. I get up and leave. My deed was over.

What was left of my work break, my final work break, will be used to complete those documents. I crane my tired neck and sighed. The flash drive in my pocket pinched me as I sat down in my desk. I removed it from there and ejected the microscopic SD card. Which was no bigger than the nail on my pinky finger. Despite its size, I have a week's worth of videos. Day after day I filmed every instance of the offenses that go on in front of every camera. Ghost sightings, abuse...technically I'm only supposed to report abuse but I'm endlessly fascinated by all the ghost stories I've heard (and now seen).

My face fell long with fright. I scattered papers all over the floor digging through each drawer – not only at my desk but every drawer in my workspace. It was turned entirely inside out but I didn't find what I was looking for. If my head wasn't buzzing with an overpowering siren-like scream, I would honest to God cry.

Something pushes me to the ground. A primal force that I mistaken for me mentally slapping myself for being a fool. My paranoia officially became justified.

Henry's hand throbbed, looking swollen. I've never been hit by a man before. I don't think I've ever been hit by a woman either. He hurt me so bad. The strike was equally as bodily damaging as emotionally. Still, my tears refused to fall out.

"Incognito mode? Really?" Henry stands over me. "You're a spy not a teenage boy who watches Internet porn."

An object was slammed near me and falls with a shatter. At first I though he was trying to drop it on me to further my injury. He was actually trying to break it. My precious IPad lied next to me in pitiful form. Henry drop kicked it and I was forced to protect my head from his foot in case it landed on me by mistake. The shape of my expensive Apple product couldn't be worst.

I'm laughed at. "Stupid, Jenny."

My body becomes afloat and my head spin. Arms are pulling me in different directions and movement became impossible. I was uncomfortable, so uncomfortable and spirituality distraught.

"Maybe even crazy. So much so we may have to put you down."


	2. The Blackout

A man of the church, a friar or a priest, walks by my side. Henry to the other side. And I'm in between, pathetically limping along the way with my bond hands against my back. When some passing guard looked puzzled; Henry demands that they go back to work because there was nothing to see. He wants it, no they want it, as inconspicuous as possible. If otherwise I would have been shot point blank back at the cubicle with a gun. My death will instead be dragged out long and ceremonial. I walked as slow as I can, so slow the buckle of my knees became more easier to detect. I would die marginally happier if it was all just a sacrifice. But my message never got out. My waste will be a waste.

The destination wasn't familiar. I had the privilege to never have seen where they took certain prisoners to be perished. All this time, executions took place in "The Hole". Or solitary confinement in better words. At the time only occupied by one, waves of matted dark hair covered her dipped downwards face - but it was almost certainly Ms. Stares A Lot from earlier. Remained chained up far too much for one woman. The metal links reached all the way to the ceiling. The other end of the room had a large wooden throne that had seemingly out of place wires extended at the back. I wasn't D.O.A. like I have claimed before but now I'm D.W.W; Dead Woman Walking.

Henry squeezed my arm when he felt me struggling in his hand. Then spun me around and throws my body into the chair, the impact might have bruised my backside through the seat of my white jumpsuit. The kind all the patients wear. The fabric was thin, pocketless, and easy to remove. And now I will die wearing it. A big wet drop leaks from one of my eyes as my head is crowned with a metal dome that barely blocked my sight. The priest prays out loud for me, his accent tricked me into thinking it was in a language different from English. Henry didn't let him finish and adjusted the knobs with a laugh. 

But it failed. When I found myself panicking about whether or not I'll go to heaven... I've found myself panicking for way too long. Henry toyed with the knobs of the machine excessively but I didn't feel the slightest shock. 

"Son of a bitch," Henry growls. He smacks the contraption in blind frustration. 

I formulate my, possibly impossible, escape. Sounds distracted me from my future murderer's ongoing complaining to a buzz singing through the air. My fellow prisoner picks up her head and I see her face now. An unexpected smile. 

Henry repeats his profanities twice as loud. Because the light all have shut down. When they turn back on briefly, I catch her practically tearing off the chains of her confinement like dental floss. The light shut again and I hear the dirge of the priest's prayers carry on through the dark. The light turns back on again, the woman is scaling up the dangling chain that reached all the ways skywards. The lights shut, I hear nothing...they turn back on, I see nothing. 

One last time, the darkness returns and is here to stay. I can't imagine a more terrifying situation; I'm shackled to an inactive electric chair, in the dawn of a blackout, all alone. In a mental institute in the middle of the dessert. Screaming will only make things worse, I sit in silence. 

Hours pass, I'm hungry and tired. I'm less edgy so I guess I can't complain. Even though I expected to be more so the long after waiting. What if I starve here and become a skeleton for explorers to stumble on? 

I squint through the pain in my eyes. A simple glows shows itself deep in the distance - a weak light but my eyes were so ill adjusted it hurt upon sight. A flashlight, I think it's a flashlight. They're going to find me before starvation can reach me first. My heart smiles at the hope in my mind. The holder of the flashlight stands before me... he wasn't holding a flashlight. His skin shined in the dark like a human firefly. Human he was not, this was a damn specter.


	3. The Keys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After this chapter, more interesting things happen so bear with me. We will be seeing Ahmanet soon but please give me your own input. Do you want to see other villains in the story or just her? I'm thinking at this point just her but I might throw in a brief minor villain to raise the stakes (beside Jekkly and company of course)

Nickel-like eyes of cinnabar stare right through me. Even though between him and I, he's the one not really there. I stir in my chair of death that had all the power taken from it. Yet the braces around my hands and feet never disengaged. When the specter nears over, I stick to my seat. He smelt of frankincense, a mix of relaxing pine and anxious chemical smell. It rushes into my nose as soon as his blue ghast goes into me and disappears. My nostrils are running with blood, I bring my finger to dab it off but couldn't see its color in the dominant black of the dark. 

My nose became an afterthought and my free moving hands took its place. I wring my cramped up wrists to confirm my unexplained escape. Very carefully, I stand up. That ghost friend of mine was the one to thanks for this. I am sure. Thank you, Casper. I smile at my own joke but immediately frowned when I realized I was not yet free. The room was used as solitary confinement for a reason. It going to take a lot more to escape, especially when I could not see. I wished I had idled in "The Hole" beforehand to make myself familiar with it but its eeriness made me avoid it like the plague. 

I snapped my fingers - my belongings. I remember Henry packing them in a tied plastic bag and throwing it on a table. Tiptoeing around the space to find it took time, but eventually bumped my stomach into a sharp corner. The corner of said table. I patted down the wood until my hands touch anything remotely resembling the feeling of plastic. As soon as I did, I teared a gaping hole into the bag by stretching it apart viciously. Let's see: water bottle, another water bottle, wallet and purse, picture of Nick, my flash drive... my halogen flashlight. I gather everything and fit whatever fits into my purse, prioritizing the flash drive. The flashlight was left out so I could search the room with it. 

Rats, rats everywhere. I didn't hear a single squeak but there are a whole family of rats coming out of nowhere. Technically they were descending from the air vent. The ribbed cover hung wide open from the only screw holding it up. Leaving a space big enough for a human to crawl into. The rat family was a full house but I failed to believe a few small animals caused this. It was something bigger, something alien. My fear was pushed down as I pushed over some heavy barrels and stacked them to make a pile. A pile which I hiked on to reach the vent's opening. 

I was worried that I would have no room to scoot my elbows back and forth, and that I'd be left left in claustrophobia. But I had plenty of room to crawl. I also worried that each step I made will make a loud metallic bang that would attract predators. But my movements only made a few light "taps" here and there. The loudest sound I made was my gasp when I unknowingly stepped on a passing rat. Truth be told, it was worthy of me throwing up. 

I spot an inconceivable illumination some steps in front of me, people were talking from its direction. I listened in, and when I made my way to the bars where the light shone between, I watch who was there. What was responsible for the light was a collection of hi-tech laterns held by each person.

"We got a nice little setup here, making a lot of money, and life just has to shovel shit in my face."

The complainer was Ben, I soon noticed. Someone else suggest he calm down, Henry that is. His suggestion was shut down. 

"Calm down? You let a whistleblower in, we got no electricity, and I'm stuck in this tiny-ass bunker with you!"

"Speaking of which, where is ol' Jenny girl anyway?"

"Uh," Henry hesitates. "I left her back at the chair."

"You didn't kill the whistleblower!?" Ben exasperated. "What if she escapes!?"

"And walk two hundred miles in the hot sand to the nearest town? Yeah right."

"Dr. Jekkyl— the dune buggy!"

Lots of thanks, my helpful little bigmouths. I almost forgot about my boss's vehicle always parked in front of the entrance while everyone else has to either sleep in a dorm here or fly back and forth from home. On foot, it could take days to leave the desert. But his car could make it only take a few hours. And there's always tubs of gas locked in the back for multiple trips. The only issue... I don't have the keys.

"It's in my locker," Henry said when asked by Jerry where it was, so they could leave too. It was like he took the words right out my brain.

"Well? Go get it. It's in the basement level." 

Another man, one I could not identify, responds, "I ain't going down there, that where 'The Mummy' is."

"Coward, just slap her ass down and run and get the keys."

"She threw someone across the room with one arm; she's a strong crazy woman. I think she might be possessed."

"You don't seriously believe that hype. This place isn't build on some sacred Egyptain land. This place isn't haunted. Possession isn't real."

"I saw a ghost before, I'm telling you we angered the Gods. They're coming for us."

I shake in my metallic containment, so I press on. I've heard enough. Since the elevator was out of commission, the stairs are my only option to get to the basement. I need those keys before they do - if they ever even attempt to beat me to it. Although I doubt I won't be ambushed by some horrible things on the way there.


	4. Set's Children

Nick... Can you hear me? Can you hear my call? Look at me; I'm talking to someone miles from where I am. In his comfortable bed when I'm cooped up in this tiny abyss of an air vent. I stroke his chin with my thumb tip, this photograph is about a tenth of the real thing. I'm such a space case that the paper felt like his skin. This really is hell on earth. I got lost trying to find any exit that wasn't where I entered, the shine of my flashlight goes everywhere I can aim. One end of the channel I found a ribbed window that I haven't got a prayer of opening. I pulled a Batman by laying on my back with my head away from the cover, arched my legs, and kicked forward against it. Pressing hard on it made no difference which made me resort to repeating striking the surface with my feet.

It all fell apart, corner to corner, but my feet had been put down. The vent cover pulled away all by its own some it seemed. I went forward to drop to the floor I've been divided from for awhile - then realized why. The culprit was not my strength but the strength of another that destroyed the blockage. A person, or unidentifiable gender or age, grabs my leg. It drags me down along with it, I screamed until I fell on my face. The pain of my bruise where Henry hit me flares up again. The mystery attacker's image was hard to grasp, even after I send my stream of light over his form. Its cries were strange; more like a cat clicking its tongue at a fly than the yelling of any words. If I seen a ghost, and were to believe it was a ghost at all, I'm seeing a zombie now. One who clicked and squealed at my flashlight and ran in fear. I think he mistook it as fire.

The building area I found myself in was plain to see. Barred doors flung open to the little rooms they were attached to. Every single one empty with an unmade bed each. Of course I'd end up in the prison ward, of course the prisoners were running amok. Okay I was wrong: there was one room that wasn't empty. Two people were in the one all the way down the path at the rear, a man and a woman having sex. No... a man raping a dead woman's remains. He moans "oh baby, oh baby, oh baby" as he digs his bare crotch against hers, the rest of her body just piled on the bed without a sound.

Afraid I'd alert him, I tiptoed past the cell and into the stairwell. Where I tried to take a rest. As soon as my back leaned against the wall - my jumpsuit was wet where it touched. I jumped away and examined the wall. Too dark to be water, and it didn't smell like paint. Please tell me it wasn't blood. Whatever it was, someone scribbled on the wall in it. At first I thought it was nonsense, shapes and crosses. But they were in a different language. Hieroglyphics, a code of some kind. I understood it of course as a pro of my obsessive curiosity of the lore of Egyptian spirituality. Three or less symbols were painted before me in bold lines but they wrote out a whole sentence.

**_WE ARE SET'S CHILDREN_ **

I understood the linguistics literally but not metaphorically. The deity of death called Set may or may not be responsible for the chaos happening all around us, but I'm not too ambient about his blame. I fear few people but demons and the evils of the beyond can make any nonbeliever shiver.

My purse was latched around my waist and I tied a knot. I made sure it was secure as I walked down the vast staircase. Nothing jumped out at me for the time being, which I was thankful for. The only thing that caught me of guard was when I stepped on the arm of an unconscious woman, one of the escaped prisoners. I know this was the second time I've stepped on something but give me a break. It's so hard to watch where I was walking when I had to keep the light directing forwards and eye level the whole time. Watching my feet was the last thing on my mind when I could bump into danger any random second.

At last, there I was. A couple of long flights of stairs and I have made it to the bottom and at basement level. Now I was the lowest I could be, far below more than a few tons of sand. Who knows what lies down here with me. The words of my frightened coworkers resonated in me so naggingly. Grown men were so avoidant of this place even if it meant freedom. That's enough to keep me weary as I travel, but I needed the keys to the dune buggy. I needed to get my story out before it was too late. And I really want to see my family and lover again.

There was a door, with a small window where I can see whatever is on the other side. Lockers, rows of them. To think one is Henry Jekkyl's. If it means breaking into every one then so be it. I put my hand on the knob. I twisted it three times but the door wouldn't budge. I didn't conclude it was locked but stuck. Come on. Come on.

"Setepa-i," whispered a voice above me. My heart drummed loud when I could see I was not alone like I had hoped. A face grinned at me, a speck of gold in her teeth. Her eyes appeared as balls of bright yellow in my light but I think those were actually the true color of her eyes.


	5. Safe From Love

Although she showed no signs of wanting to harm me, I break into a sprint away from the crazed yelow-eyed patient. Momentarily abandoning my goal; looks like I have to postpone getting those car keys. Whenever I considered running back, I think of those eyes that were so tattooed into my retina. So that was the woman they spoke so fearful of... 'The Mummy'. I didn't know yet why they titled her as that (and didn't want to know) but their concerns were now heretical to me. And that's solely going off her what I've seen of her face.

Why is there a kitchen in the basement? I thought it was some sort of boiler room that I've stumbled into, but I see stoves and freezers and appliances of the cooking variety. Do these sickos honesty prepare food down here to serve to the patients? Had I knew, I would definitely add this to my reportings. It seemed unsanitary and cruel - then again, that's why I was a whistleblower in the first place.

The basement dweller did not chase me, but her voice did. I hear it through the walls. As it gets closer and clearer, I anticipate her breaking through them.

"You've came to see me... Thank you."

Just so you know, despite my pity for her, saying I came here to see her was comically the opposite of what I wanted. Which is why I crawled deep into one of the cabinet as quickly but quietly as I can. Unless she had night vision naturally built into her, I might have been safe. I shut off my flashlight, without my sight the height of feeling - as well as my hearing - peaked. I have grown sensitive to the flying locusts around my head, more importantly I have grown sensitive to any footprints nearing. To my dismay, I hear her voice again.

"My sweet lamb, my chosen, return to me. Come into my arms. Stay there... Forever."

She's worse than I thought. Funny as she hasn't exactly done anything to me yet. A chance I will fight to the death to never give her. As I am in hiding, I am forced to hear every single word come out of her mouth. I could write a book of all the creepy, unpleasant remarks she made about me. Threatening to find me, telling me that inhibition would not keep me safe from love, whatever that means. She sounded obsessed with me like some kind of stalker out of _Single White Female._ But I doubt I had seen her in my life.

I listen closely to the voice calling to me, and suggest to myself that I was wrong. There was a not so subtle accent altering her speech. It was exotic and reminded me of various middle eastern accents. What was now a calm purr was an angry cry of vindication before, something something _rats_ something something _bury_. There wasn't enough evidence to support my theory, but could 'The Mummy' be that girl they chained and muzzled and put in solitary confinement?

The footsteps finally came into earshot; judging by their patter I think her feet were bare. It was only a matter of time before she starts opening the cabinets, I panicked. She practically teased me as she hunt extremely slowly around the room. My legs twitched for action. If she lays a finger of the little door of the cabinet of which I'm hiding, I won't waste time. I'd kick her and run.

My pursuer murmurs words so rehearsed it sounds like a song. If I tried I could have mentally translated the dead language she used. The chant reminded me of the classic Egyptian riff of _Streets of Cairo_ but only not as cheery. As much of a dirge as the prayer that would have been my swan song if not for the electric malfunction.

She interrupts herself to speak in English. "There you are."

I shouldn't be having my heart race at this rate and it not kill me. It should be impossible. My heart could provide energy like a potato it beat so quick. 'The Mummy' drums her fingernails on the wood, the wood of the top of my cabinet to be exact. I hear them grip the tiny knob. Pulling at it until my shivering curled self is revealed.

Seeing as there was no reason to keep my flashlight off, I click it back on... And swing her in the head with it. She moans in pain and I crawl out of the space and over her. Leaving the kitchen room.


	6. The Girl In Gauze

The door was on the floor. Freshly ripped from the hinges but laid oddly neatly in the middle of the doorway. One half stuck out to my end and the other half in the lockeroom; I walked on it like a bridge to the next room. As soon as I passed the cracked glass peep window, I made it. They were right, she is strong. Her physique looked svelte at first glance but the power needed to break down this door would be out of a human's reach. Either she really wanted to go after me... or she was a demon in a mortal's clothing. And either way I'm a fool for hitting her with my flashlight. Unless I wanted to have my head mounted on the wall like a deer, I would prioritize finding another hiding place over getting my hands on a couple of car keys. But guess what I did first?

Henry Jekkyl's locker stood out like a sore thumb, because it was vandalized. Claw markings, shit, blood, and semen all over it from top to bottom. And writing. The same language and signature as the one from the stairwell, and even written in the same liquid compound.

_**TWO-FACED HATEFUL MAN** _

It's a miracle I've learned to understand this language after a life of being told how useless it will be in the future. Despite the damage done to the locker, the padlock remained intact. I would fiddle with it but the disgusting stench was a force field that kept me back. I obviously didn't know the number combination code so my last resort would be to break it open. Good thing an angry patient (or ghoul) helped weaken it for me.

I see a big shadow caught in my flashlight, it's carrier slightly far away. They were deep in the hallway but crept in my direction with slow, dragging, footsteps. I pull myself to the side and covered my mouth, the flashlight aiming away from the shadow just in case. But I kept it on, and witnessed a new shadow in my sight. It laid flat on the surface of the nearest locker, unlike Henry's, it was so clean I could see my reflection but it was dominated by what I thought was a second shadow. It morphed my image into a complete different person. A man took place of it but I knew it wasn't my face that was changing because when I gaped my mouth in shock, he simply stares back with uncaring response. The tight serious eyes darted to the side, as to check the hallway where I took refuge in hiding of. Those eyes rounded drastically and I can clearly see the color. Red- which made me think of that ghost man who freed me. Perhaps he was a different ghost but his presence left off a protective familiarity on me.

The shadow walking towards the locker room is now only a couple of feet away. It didn't keep its massive hazy form and became solid against the wall and turned into the shape of a woman - my chaser. An arm raise as to touch something, the bicep expanded in a while that made me regret calling her svelte. The hand is in a tight fist but I can't see what she was holding. It reminded me how a knife wielding maniac holds their weapons stereotypically. I can see the hilt pointed towards her face, and what appeared to be a curve at the other end.

My specter friend whispers, "run, Jenny, run."

As much as it made me feel like I've gone mad, I nodded at him. And flew like a bat out of hell. It's hard to run without making much sound, but damn if I wouldn't make it possible in this case. She's definitely stronger than me, she's probably faster too. And the way she climbed that chain like a chimpanzee up a vine, she would be able to reach me if I went back to worming around in a vent.

I halted my running to a complete stop, a cloud of dust followed my feet. If I took another step, I would have fallen into a hole. A giant hole has been punched into the floor of the locker room by God knows what. I didn't care what all of a sudden, and circled my flashlight to see if the bottom wasn't too far down. Although far from shallow, the drop was at least ten feet, a floor of sand would cushion my fall. I wanted to briefly prepare myself but something hits me from behind.

My body turns mid fall and standing at the mouth of the gap was a hunched over form. That faceless, androgynous monster from before. It was faceless because bandages had been tied heavily around its head and I had to wonder how breathing was possible like that. The tape also covered most if not every inch of the clicking creature. The last thing I saw before I made impact with the floor below.

I cried hysterically. Not because of the fall, although it did hurt as expected. Something very sharp made contact with my shin. And now examining it under a light, I see that 'something' buried deep in my bone. Like a baby, I wailed and flailed on the sand. A mouthful of it flooded in my screaming jowls. Fists battering the ground in misdirected anger.

"My darling chosen! Please tell me you're alright!"

The worried pleads that I heard high above where I was came from a voice I known too well. My tearful eyes see someone replacing the monster that pushed me down here. A more professional posture that wore the same gauze wrappings as the one before. Hers were less tight, and draped around her. Whatever skin showed had print tattooed vertical, even up and down her topaz eyes.

She puts a hand to her chest. "Why did you do that, why did you do that to yourself? I—"

Ignoring her, I gripped the thing impaling my leg. What was unidentifiable a moment ago, I now see was now a thick shard of a gem-like material. No wonder it was so painful. I cringed imagine taking a single step while having this in me. Throwing my fear of further pain into the wind, I pluck it from my shin. I may have forgot that it was stuck in my bone as well, but I depressingly remembered when I felt a crushing bite under my knee. Blood rained on the sandy floor. My intertwining fingers covered the wound and I cradled my leg. It was impossible for me to grab my flashlight and look up at _The Mummy_. That didn't mean I couldn't block out her voice.

The worrying faded into a controlled growl. "Were you trying to die? You would rather die than be with me?"

My mind went to a loud 'yes' that I wanted to come out my dirty lips. Instead I refused to say a word.

"Very well," she said, "then die."


	7. Mercury

There's noise in this place; the lowest I could possible be as I am literally under the hospital. It wasn't the kind of noise that would bring me to startle, calm drips patter the sand throughout the tunnel. As I walked straight forward unsure of what I was looking for - I constantly anticipated getting splashed by one. The need to wash my gash with the substance was crushed under the weight of my certainty that it wasn't water. Water could not possible thrive at this level let alone any level above three dozens feet. I would have to dig way deeper if I needed to find any. My only guess left was bat guano sticking all around over my head.

The sand became so dense down the path I left not one footprint. It felt like snow on the bottom of my feet, I forgot I was still in the desert. The last time I felt the desert sand on my toes it nearly scalded the skin off them. Now I found myself struggling to find warmth in my paper thin uniform with exposed arms and legs.

Underneath the noisy drip-drops, I hear sand being shifted around. Every time I think I'm alone... I'm not. Tell me she followed me. Go ahead. _Tell me_. I stop for a little to crouch at my ankles, claw my fingers in the ground to grab a fistful. It's thick and crumbles in my hand. My eyes squint and walk towards her. A faint red-yellow flicker, eyes that glow in the dark. Eyes I will blind. I'm going to blind her, I promised as I hold my ball of sand like a baseball. Then I'll beat her with my flashlight again. Maybe I wouldn't do the later, honestly I might just take off after the former. Going. Going. Go. First my creeping turned into a scurry and then I run towards my target.

It wasn't her, but it was another monster anyway. Complexion the same of his chapped, rusted flesh ruining the human he might have used to be. I toss sand on him and scream, but he blocked it with an arm crossed over his dim eyes. The glow belonged to a fire pit that had been created near us.

"Jennifer. Stop!" He yelled at me removing his arm from his face. "I'm not bad, I'm just... cursed."

I didn't want to be fooled by his humanoid speech and expression. No dead fish eyes here, no feline clicking, just a regular man with damaged skin. He told me about how he ended up here; he was sent to fetch Henry's dune buggy keys, like me, but was ambushed by a pack of zombies. The times I dealt with them were strictly one-on-one and anything more than that would have terrified me. The titanic hole torn into the floor of the locker room was made by all the zombies trying to get into the building through the floor in typical horror fashion. The cursed man, who name was Chris Vail, fell down the hole to avoid having his face eaten off. Too bad for him as they jumped with him and took advantage of him. Leading to his demonic features. Vail was a worker here in the hospital but I never met him until now, he said he worked at the male ward on the other side. I asked him how can I get back up; I know I was being overbearing but stable human interaction was desperately needed in my palette.

"I'm still trying to figure that out for myself," Vail said. He gives me a snotty smile, " _Setepa-i._ "

His impression was spot on but I had to roll my eyes. My sense of humor had long expired. We talked more and I listened attentively because he knew leagues more than I did.

"'Mummy'? No, no, no. Miss tall, tan, and beautiful goes by 'Ahmanet'. Though she's looking more gray than tan nowadays." Although he speaks better than I had expected beforehand, his run on sentences are a pain to sit through.

Vail invites me to sit by the fire he built. I was impressed by how he managed to find sticks and rocks when the only materials around us was sand and guano. He laughs at me insultingly; I was being informed that the liquid-like stuff was mercury to be exact. Mercury, quicksilver, instantly I made the connection to its use in ancient Egypt. To ward award evil spirits. Vail congratulated me in an almost patronizing attitude for my knowledge; the only obstacle that kept this Ahmanet was the mercury lacing around me. If it wasn't for obtaining the keys, I think I would stay here forever.

I gave Vail a minute to finish talking before it was my turn. If he was picked to get the keys too, that means he knows the lock code to Henry's locker. My impatience kept me taping my fingers, even though what he was saying interested me. According to his abridged explanation, Egyptain god Set has brought this chaos to fruition as punishment for our disturbance of a tomb. Though he is never physically here, his presence haunts these ground. His servant are out for blood and are starting with us. Ahmanet was no exception, I thought. But she was above that role; seeming to be more focused on an individualistic ambition.

"And that ambition is you. She has plans for you, big plans. You're going to be her bitch once she gets her hands on you. Once Ahmanet gets her precious bride, hehe..."

That did it. I grab him by the collar, not aggressively tackling him but intimidating him clearly. A twing of surprise in his eyes as I rocked him back and forth. My threatening murmurs came in the form as a shout with the help of the echoey tunnel. Anyone on the first few floors could hear me demand he spill the lock code. He was easily convinced but more out of disbelief I could make it far in Set's newfound playground. Soon to be his kingdom.

"Scoop up some mercury," Vail instructs as his pours out the rest of the water bottle I took from my purse for a drinking break. Without my consent of course.

"The code digits are: 4-8-4-8."

You can be sure I wrote those numbers down. On the white cap of my bottle, where I'll always be reminded, I fit them on it in marker. Normally I'd use my iPad for note-taking but obviously I won't be able to that again. Vail didn't want to team up with me on my quest, as he preferred to sit stalemate underground. His company would have been comforting albeit mildly gratting too. Alongside his prior helpfulness, he packed me an extra pair of batteries that match perfectly with my halogen flashlight. They were originally from his camera which was destroyed by the fall.

Most of which I needed to know has been handed to me, but none of which explain how I would get back to the locker room. I found myself puzzling, trying to think it through. This hollow bottom area may have been separate from the foundation, but it was still left with a purpose. How could a magnificent spacious area be left untouched without a way to enter or exit. I walked farther down the path and fel the absence of sand. Now rubble painfully touches my feet, but the ground felt otherwise paved. And I heard the chatter of rats again. I tried to find them in my light, putting on a rat that looked as if she was in a hurry. Her pick paws finally found something to grab on to a world of empty. Was it weird to feel happy for her? She traveled upwards her support, claws scraping against metal. Then all gone. I studied closely on what it was precisely: a ladder that led into another vent.


	8. Fate

After ascending up the shoot, I rest on top of the ledge. Nick's picture rested with me on the palm of my joined hands. She wants to make me her bride, Nick. I laughed with my lover as I tell him the details of my journey. Only half aware of the fact he couldn't hear me. There is something about air vents that make me think of Nick; it must of been due to these places being the closest to safety as I will ever be in this temple of doom. Reminds me of the comfort of my husband and I's apartment. We were supposed to both save up on money from our decently paying jobs, buy a better home, no kids... okay maybe one and that's all. When we retire I'll book us a nice vacation, either Italy or Spain. Not Egypt, fuck Egypt. If I get out alive, I'll never watch another mummy monster movie ever again. Which is a shame because I used to love them.

I squirm forward after my little break, my bleeding shin burned against the tinny floor. I'm not going to be able to run for at least a week. But clearly I didn't have a week. So I force my body through the trail on stamina alone, leaving a red mark as my body moves, I crawl over a passing cap with thin windowing openings to the room below. Using my flashlight, I uncovered what lied below me. Was it a place I could land, like the locker room? No, the locker room must be in the far left of the basement. There were lines of boxes, pyramids of boxes, giant boxes made of smaller boxes. An unexciting storage room, so it seems.

Except with bodies - tossed to the back of the room, were bodies. Naked, violated cadavers all sleeping in a huddle on one another. All faced up so I could see what they each had in common: every single one had a deep cut located on where their hearts should be. A strong knife lacerated through their breast plate giving them identical heart wounds. A knife came to mind because Ahmanet carried one before, so I had a hunch she was behind the scene I saw. What ritual are they a part of, what does she want, and am I next?

My non phased eyes pull away from the room, my body stayed on task but my mind wept from enduring these traumatic images. It's hard to stay strong when you have to house such horror. I tried to think of home to keep my composure but it only worked a small fraction. Better than nothing.

Another vent cover meets my way at the end of a long curve leading towards the left. As convenient as it was that it had been removed for me, I worried that it implies the presence of a certain evil.

A woman tackles me and I scream, she squeezes my biceps and started barking at me.

"Please, I need your help. Point your light over there, please." She begged.

Her eyes looked clear in my line of vision, white-blue with no hint of pupil. She wasn't Ahmanet, but she was likely possessed. Our clothes matched, meaning she was a patient here before the blackout. He skin looked as dry and cracked as Chris Vail's did, they must both be suffering from the same curse. Physically affected, but still maintained ownership of their brains. This woman must have been as lost as I was, and much more unlucky.

Out of pity, I aim my light to where she wanted me. I took a step back as I revealed yet another corpse in the dark. She looked in even worst shape than the ones in the storage room. Escivated like a goat being prepared for a feast. Exposed bones under torn flesh, blood has been almost completely drained out of her. A glob, one of her organs, has been removed from her and placed near her broken head. The other woman picked it up tenderly, I was under the impression that they were friends but since we kept the patients separated most of the time I couldn't think of how. Then she brought the un-beating gut ball to her lips and kissed it, leftover blood covered them like lipstick. I gagged and quickly looked away; when I looked back to see if she was done, the cursed woman gave me an offended look.

"I'm sorry, does this disgust you?" She spits.

Slowly, I walk back so I could move farther away from her. Sirens blared in my head and escalated when I fell back. A jar tipped over and shattered to twenty pieces and my tailbone hurt. My hands went to hold the floor so I could stand, but the pieces get under them and pressed against my palms.

"My _urns_!" Her clear eyes managed to look horrified without lid-movement, then angry.

I cursed my clumsiness. I looked at the urn I broke after exposing my light over it, the dissected girl's lung managed to fit into it but now spilled out. Leading to the anger of the one who wanted to give her a proper burial. My sheepish apology did not cause her to forgive me but provoked her to walk towards me threateningly. Careful not to make make any sudden movements, I gradually unbutton my purse.

As soon as she preps to pounce me, I take out my mercury-filled bottle and wave it in her face. She jumps backwards instead of forwards, to my relief. To me this was just an unhealthy part of my sushi, but to them this was kryptonite. Not necessarily poisonous but a weakness to them. Even Ahmanet was kept away by it. My eyes locked tightly on her while I wave around my bottle like a wand, while I quietly leave.

The mercury was kept on hand as I travel back to the locker room. The trip was shorter than I expected thanks to the air vent I used leading here. I walk along the rows of lockers and look out for Henry's. Despite my effective weapon, I was edgy about being assaulted. But it will all be over soon; I know the code now, I can get what I'm after. Then I'll find a way outside. Then I'll drive home. Then I'll go to a local library at the next town and use one of their computers to access my flash drive finish that email. Then I'll—

One of the lockers was left wide open. The one with the poor condition due to recent vandalization. Henry's. I prayed that the worst wasn't true. I saw some papers, a lunch pack, no bag, no keys. Ignoring the rancid smell, I dig through everything I see in hopes that it was just buried under everything. It was evident someone got here before I could. That someone took the keys. I pounded the door and the bang was ear-bleeding. My cares that I would be heard was overpowered by my perfectly justified rage. I won't win, I don't win.

De ja vu strikes again as I hear footsteps with me standing in front Henry's locker. She heard me, like a dog running to you when you come home from work. I look east and then west in search of somewhere to go. There's that hole in the floor, but I don't want to start over. So I run into the nearest doorway that I did not notice the first time.

The room had been messed around with by Set and company. Decorated with golden elaborate coffins leaned against the wall, a throne, creepy wall writing, etcetera. Said throne was the electric chair that Henry tried to kill me in, but with all wires removed and painted, a small rug mat on the seat. Script carved into the wood, too small for me to read. Not like the letters on the wall: **_FATES WORST THAN DEATH._** An abridged version since I'm not perfect at reading this language, yet it was easy for me to read beforehand. Although some words from the other walls may have been misinterpreted by me. In english, the one on Henry's locker was probably a lot more derogatory.

Before becoming to caught up in my surroundings, I run into a sarcophagus. The sarcophagus that looked like a screaming face with a crown. My frame fit perfectly inside but I felt like I didn't belong here, the paranoia that I trapped myself infested me. What if the lid will be too heavy to remove, I wonder. Illogically, true because I easily took it off to come inside. The walls closing around me were solid but I could hear everything.

"Setepa-i," Ahmanet's familar phrase reaches me. I pat my heart rapidly with my hand to release tension but stopped when I found myself making too much noise. I heard her picked along the room languid and observant. She knew there was only one hiding place, the one I occupied, but was playing with my mind.

"The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were the one. Those worthless vermin treated you badly because they are afraid of you. You'd be a queen, girl. Come to me and I'll make you a queen. I'll make you whole."

Suddenly, I stop hearing her movements. Which scared me more than if I did. Actually I couldn't decide which was worse. Please tell me she left. Just in case, I clutch my bottle... I left my bottle behind. I forgot in back at the locker room. Everything feels awful and not in my favor. Especially when my coffin wiggles. In a hast I tried to zoom the hell out of it but the lid would not drop down.

I kicked and kicked and nothing gave in. Except I fell. Bracing for an extremely loud fall that would hopefully knock the cover off, the fall was cut short. My containment was lightly placed on the floor yet my body felt forced in many directions.

"Set made you a gift for me, my chosen." Ahmanet turns me around. "To be opened - then opened again, then used."

My face leaked tears. I couldn't believe I was crying for real but whatever happened at the time was an after thought. What was going to happen tormented my soul inside out. Something I bet Ahmanet was going to do to me herself.

"Don't worry, I will be a good pharaoh. And lover to you. Not like..." her words fade away for a moment. She stopped talking but continued to move my coffin. Pulling me somewhere she had planned to take me since the beginning.

The whole way I put up the biggest fuss I ever did. Her physique allowed her to drag a heavy object but not so effortlessly as to it be a quick journey. In my small holding cell, I gasp for air. Dying of suffocation seemed preferable than my upcoming fate. Just when a situation seemed to have no room for it to get worst, my flashlight flickers. Rolling side to side and grower dimmer and dimmer. I am in complete darkness the next second.

 

 


	9. The Kill

Ahmanet dragged me all the way back to the storage room, now bright with an abundance of lit candles. I was made to walk after breaking away from the gilded cocoon. Eyes feeling like they were being fried. It was different actually being there than observing it from above with limited vision. Everything out of my line of sight before now becomes clear as a bell. The shadows hid a few things; a broad wooden table with knobs at each end, and a cage. A chicken coop boarded up from top to bottom for who knows why. I should be disturbed but I was just happy to see the light again, I grown so bored of the dark and looking though the lends of a halogen with batteries that lasts for two hours. What am I saying, I've been anything except bored. I'm going to die.

I never thought I'd get this far, I predicted pessimistically I would be dead three minutes after the blackout. My last wishes are that it will be quick and painless and that the FBI find the evidence of my flash drive under inspection of my remains. Judging by Ahmanet's previous entries to her murder pile, I would be kept in one piece. Thrashing in her grasp is an assumed easier feat than thrashing in a giant stone coffin. It was harder. I was a doll in her hands, like that man they said she thrown like a baseball. I now am a believer of that piece of gossip. Seeing how fighting didn't work - I flashed her my wedding ring and told her I was married. Stupid, but a last resort is a last resort. Ahmanet held my wrist to her face and eyed it like she's never seen one before. I'm now seeing it's not just the color of her eyes that was unusual, but her irises were doubled in each eyeball. They reminded me of those of a spider's.

She pulled of my ring and flung it across the storage room. "Now you're not."

Without being given the chance to explain that's not how it works... she locked me up in the pen. Tossed in and fell in a patch of wet dirt covering the hard concrete. The cause of the dirt's moisture looked to be mysterious, I removed my hand from it to see red stuck in the lines of my palms. Although I liked to think it was chicken blood, it made more sense if it wasn't. Besides the dirt, the planks of wood were spotted with dark drops of carmine. The gate that would have exposed more of what was happening outside now only had small opening here and there. My fingers weave through it and closed in, I watch past the metal wires with morbid anticipation.

No Ahmanet to be seen, but one of those dead bodies managed to move away from one end of the room to my end. His poor arms bound tight to the knobs of the table with a thick rope that could have been strong enough to lift an anchor. He was unusually hairless, salmon flesh stripped of all hair even down to his limp penis. The skin was flawless at the moment which lead me to believe he was yet to be killed. I'm proven right as he closes a hand and yanks it forwards, then back and forth with both. His head switched sides with every yank and he finally sees me. All the fight went away with the uniting of our glances. A place so quiet with inanimate cardboard boxes and dead people, you can hear his weak voice.

He gasped dryly, "help... me."

I wanted to. As selfish as I was feeling, only concerned with what will happen to me, I wanted him safe. There was nothing I could do to help, though. What fool leaves their one valuable weapon behind? Would having mercury even help me all in this situation anyway? My mind threaded water, enough to put me to sleep. I needed to lay down to calm myself. But I didn't want to sleep in dirt and potentially human blood. 

We hear a noise, a noise of which he had the luxury to check the source of. He flashes his face towards whatever made it but the movement was partially constricted. Teeth clench and eyes big, his fighting revived in an instant. I shrink behind the board up gate to completely avoid being seen and seeing anything. I hold my ears to block out sound, the results were less successful. Muffled, his screaming penetrates my hands and into my eardrums. A moment ago he was so jaded he could barely speak to me, now he sobbed and wailed for mercy. I didn't need to see to know who was torturing him.

"It hurts, I know," she whispered motherly, "this will be over soon."

I let my ears go uncovered only to be assaulted with worse sounds than screaming; Ahmanet was beating the man with an object. It darted against the air with a 'cch' that promised sharpness. A short while after, not another scream again. Not a single pant for air, no soft weeping, not even the rubbing of rope against his arms. She took all his sound out.

Being under the impression that I don't have to watch a man's murder anymore gave me the heart to watch. Though I really hated to. He was as lifeless as a door nail but she kept at it. A non-reactive body laid stalemate as it was rammed with Ahmanet's knife. She snorts impatiently and picks up speeds - blood running down his nose, lips, chest, and ribs. If I wasn't afraid of getting skinned alive, I would yell at her to stop. Literal overkill on top of being unsightly frustrating.

"I'm so sorry, I had really hoped it was going to work this time," she told him in a sad voice. 

His jaw unslacked and passive, he was not prettied up as the dead people I'm used to seeing at funeral homes. The eyes were left opened and slimy with tears. Ahmanet slices the ropes of his unnecessary capture with the knife, the jewel on the hilt aimed towards me. 

"It's hard to find a chosen one, power is not for everyone." Ahmanet pushes him off the table and he falls to the floor. He was a toy that she couldn't play with anymore.

And I'll be joining him, I think unpleasantly. I fold up at the bottom of the coop to hide from her for the last time. My heart and blood stirred rapidly throughout my body and I quickly became nauseous. I'm not big enough to be this storm of anxiety I experienced. On the floor, I am near the lowest peephole in my prison. Ahmanet turns around and immediately sees my cramped, terrified face,

"When I pierce the shells of most, they perish. But not you - do not discourage. I have an... especially good feeling about you." 

I freaked out worst when she started to make steps in my direction. Ungracefully shouting and rolling around on the floor; the floor I hopped up from when the coop's gate creaked. Ahmanet smiled a menacing smile, I clawed the wood of the planks with my dirt and sand caked nails. I was spun around until I faced her, my arm raised high up in her all too familiar grasp. 

"My nursing queen," she said as she pinches my jaw. "A frozen rabbit of a girl— soon to be a goddess."

She held my blubbering face between her extremely uncut nails. Any tighter, and she could draw blood. My cries didn't alarm her at all, on the contrary she reveled in them by licking the tears right off my cheek. Her serpent-like tongue swiped up it and it tasted good judging from her moan. The humid breath I had nose full of reeked like something fermented. A whiff stunned me enough and her stuffing my mouth with her tongue nearly made me pass out. My senses were so overstimulated they shut down in a flash. The last thing I felt was a lashing and swirling motion past my lips. Ahmanet may have ate the soul out of me.


	10. Jennifer's Coronation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I lost the first draft of this chapter :( it was better

My expanding and deflating stomach was as bare as the rest of me. I wake up - clothes gone, crotch sheered and plucked down to my taint, eyebrows threaded (something I couldn't see but felt the skin of my brow burn lightly, and put two and two together). My breast were no longer constricted in my tight bra, their nipples sharpened under the peculiar cold air. I'm freezing to the bone and there was no reason to it at all. A magic so universe bending that it made African land from hot as the sun to cold as the moon. The only warm part of me were my wrists because of the friction of rough rope around them. I tried to break it but the table still has me. Forced to stare at my pathetic nudity, I see that my legs were identical. The angry gash that struck one or the other has been completely wiped off with no sign of even being scratched. I wouldn't have guess I'd be given a full makeover but if I did I wouldn't guess medical healing would be part of it.

Ahmanet talks to herself in ancient Egyptain with a voice too airy for me to translate accurately. A nostril on her long nose caved in like a broken statue from the time I hit her with my flashlight. I wondered why couldn't she heal herself like she did me. She sounded hopelessly in love while she paws her fingers over my abdominal region. Gentle as not to cut me with her nails. They almost went down below my belt and to my vagina but she quickly withdraws them from my belly before they could.

"Oh, my dear. You are endlessly beautiful, such soft milky skin."

My skin ironically stopped looking 'milky' and looked reddish. Flattered? Embarrassed? Whatever doubt I had soured when she took the wandering hands to my breast. Now my embarrassment peaked highly with no room for flattery. I'm her favorite, I think. Ahmanet didn't molest the last unlucky sacrifice. Well he didn't have developed breast for her to grab at, or long blonde hair to tousle. At least she didn't shave my head. She let a lock lay in her opened hold for her to examine.

Ahmanet let the piece of my hair fall off her hand. "You are going to be perfect."

Slightly I picked my head up when she leaned off the table, still sitting on me, to find out what she was going to get from the floor. Rusty old blade, should be dull but granted immortal sharpness. It won't be painless to take it straight to the chest. I toss and turn but if a grown man of decent muscular build couldn't break these ropes, I sure wasn't going to. My skin burns against them until it feels like cooked meat.

"Shhh let's relax," Ahmanet murmurs. "As woman rulers, we unfortunately are subjected to some customs. I know _I_ was. But I fought to get where I am now. And so shall you. You will prosper like a dessert bloom after you endure the pain that comes with it. And you shall do for us."

I'm flying off the table with my back in mid air but my pinned hands and feet kept me grounded. Sweat made my skin muddy and tears made my eyes over-moisturized; much of which I saw appeared as bubbles to me. When my vision clears, it is greeted with Ahmanet making circles on my chest. I know she wasn't playing with my breasts, she was demonstrating my slaughter, but the way she cupped them drove my mind off in that territory of erotica. Not helping by the fact that she was sitting directly on top of me. Her barely there gauze was so worn it was peeling off her, meaning we were skin on skin.

"It will not take too long." she runs a finger down my center. "A chop here— once or twice, discarding what is..."

Ahmanet is distracted by my vagina, that she shaved while I was knocked out. My womanhood apparently prompted her to turn her back to me and give it a long glance. Is she going to 'discard' my vagina? I hope not.

The loon turns back towards me and continues. " _Useless_."

I seriously pondered what word she was going to use prior. Not that it mattered. Details like that were infinitesimal in my position. If I had to die, I'd like my pain to not last more than a minute. It would be a quick and ordinary fast asleep caused by instant trauma to the head. My death is going to be a procedure that will be anything but. There's not a chance of escaping. I wish this was a movie so when she drops the dagger it will miss and cut the ropes, but realistically I had more of a chance of winning the lottery.

"A healthy, pretty vessel to welcome Set. To grow our new kingdom together," Ahmanet explained stagnantly. Although a touch excited, came at the act in a nonchalant way.

Suddenly, the knife slowly ascended over her head and I prepared to die. The jewel at the end shines. My cries were small whimpers before but evolved into cawing sobs that were so hysterical they sounded indistinguishable from the laughter from getting tickled. The bottom lip I had pronounced began to hurt and stiffen. Drool fell out the corner of my mouth and into my hair. I can hear a funeral bell ringing in my head, the same one that rung for me back when the electric chair was an electric chair and not masquerading a royal chair.

"I will make the first thrust short. Try not to move while it is in, struggling is only going to make it hurt worse," she said as she brought the knife a bit higher in the air. Each raise signified the nearing of my end.

Speaking of which... just get it over with. I want this to be so much of a flash that I won't have time to think. I don't want to contemplate the incomplete life I had, the negative consequences of my actions, the people who will be affected by my failure, or my family. The bell I am hearing sound so majestic but eerie. Ahmanet tried to get me to calm down like a fussing baby but I refused.

"This is not an easy coronation, but you will thank me later. I promise," Ahmanet said as she lifted the knife for the final time, "just close your eyes... and think of our kingdom."

Extra hands took the blade. Turning her arm as far back as it can go, making her fall off the table. Which weakened from the blow. I flexed an arm and it cracked the knob right from the rest of the wood. With my other arm, and feet, I do the same. Unknowingly, I furthered the damage and the pulls collapse the table into clunky firewood. The snap was earsplitting and I flung to the floor onto my hands and knees. I'm breathing heavy on the floor naked, which was leagues better than being tied to the table. I feel like I've won the lottery.

I expected my saving grace to be a powerhouse by how they managed to break through hulking wood. But it was a malnourished woman that was wrestling Ahmanet to the ground. She hissed at her in a fit of vengeful rage. Ahmanet made a swipe at her with the dagger but only tore a slit into the fabric of her prisoner uniform. Blood lingered on her lips, that I recalled landing a kiss on a freshly removed heart. Vengeful rage indeed. So it was The Mummy who ripped that girl apart. If she didn't, her friend wouldn't seek her murderer out and I'd be impaled.

Ahmanet jabbed the wall with her weapon after witnessing her attacker basically hit her and ran. The tip probes a crack in the surface, the edge made that crack shoot out like an earthquake. A lighting bolt shaped scar spread over the wall.

"Interloper."


	11. Naked On the Run

I pull out the ropes on my ankles and wrists, so I dont have heavy blocks of wood weighing me down. They disengaged from the table, I flexed my arm and the knob came right off along with it. Then followed with every restrained part of me. The ropes left behind pink skin that looked and felt like a sunburn, but was a harmless boo-boo compared to getting a shard inches deep in my lower leg. I won't miss that shocking pain that lingered for what seemed to be forever. One could only imagine having a similar pain done to their heart, at least a stab to the leg won't kill me. My head turned to the junkyard heap that cast a vast shadow under the fires of all the candles, the shadow was made of many arms and no face like a black monster. It lurked over me but when I followed it, I was brought back to the body pile. The corpses at the bottom were starting to become bad, those were the first murder victims judging by how thin and pale they were looking. To think I would have topped it if not had Ahmanet screwed over a short tempered organ kisser. Good. Two violent bitches chasing each other and leaving me alone.

Among the candles was a single torch hooked into a hung metal ring. Speaking of rings, I took it from the holder to search at the rear of the room beyond the light. Leaving without my wedding ring was unacceptable. It was tossed against the wall and ricocheted in another direction. All it took was lighting up the a corner to find it abandoned there with strands of spider web sticking to it. After cleaning my ring I twist it on but keep searching. Not being ideal to carry a big inconspicuous torch when I am supposed to be stealthy, I set my goal on getting my purse. Ahmanet removed me of my clothing and took my bag alon with them. Where she put them was a puzzle; there were hundreds of boxes all stacked around and the only clothing in sight was a white dress. Obviously not mine as I wore an unattractive unisex prisoner garb and not a cotton gown that could have belonged to a princess. A dingy mannequin with barely humanoid facial features filled it rather shapely. Was Ahmanet going to wear this dress... or was I? I measured it using my body to see if my proportions matched, my shoulder rubbed the mannequin's shoulder without me having to lower of raise myself. If I hid behind and held against her back in perfect alignment, I would be unseeable. Where did this dress come from and why do I think it wasn't sewn.

Although it would have been nice to have some clothes on, I was grateful that my belongings were politely left behind in the sarcophagus. Just without my uniform. I'll walk around naked for as much as I need if it means I have my flashlight. The two extra batteries Vail lend to me were prepared in the contents of my purse. Inevitably they will expire in a couple of hours, I'll have to be conservative about their usage. Not that I was planning on staying for any longer. The main problem was - I had no clue where to go. I checked Henry's locker, there were no car keys. Totally taken by someone who beat me to the finish line; a big 'now what' repeated in my head. Whatever I chose to do, I need to do it fast. My last chance was to go back upstairs. If I need to build a getaway vehicle, I will. If I need to walk through the dessert naked and only in possession of one bottle of water, I will. Whistleblower or no whistleblower.

I sneak out the storage and cover the mouth of my newly powered flashlight. I spread my fingers slightly to release a mild shine. The area I followed didn't feel familar, sans the high ceiling that was everywhere. No vents and only one door to go out through. I hated when there was an obvious entrance or exit, because I'll be so vulnerable to an ambush. But my choices were numbered. I opened the door and take my first step.

Before my foot hits the floor, I take it back to put it down. My path was somewhat blocked by a tangled mess. A light fabric contrasted against the almost roasted looking skin, the serial number embroidered at the front was divided by a tear cut by a knife. Yet they still seemed to clean for the state of who wore it, my savior seemed to have lost her fight with Ahmanet but her defeat had me disturbingly confused. She wasn't stabbed, her body looked like it was recently taken out of the oven. Blackened like charred steak but gamy and tight against the bones, eyes permanently shut and teeth exposed in a paused scream. Forget rotten, she was fully fossilized. The presence of the one responsible is near as I hear her calls. Without wait I run to find refuge behind a wide support beam as big as a tree.

"I apologize for our interruption but I took care of it as you can see. Completely absorbed for my upcoming regeneration. Mayhaps when I'm human again... you will find me more attractive," Ahmanet says, knowing well that I'm listening somewhere.

I tried not to laugh and give myself away. Though it didn't stop me from spilling light once again by separating my fingers over my flashlight. I can see her faint silhouette on the screening of a window too opaque to see her. It got old having to stay in one place and hear her monologue again, but this time her voice is saddened. Remorseful, however still passive aggressive.

"I forgive you. You left me before the coronation was over, and I forgive you. You don't know what you have done. When you are lonely, you will come to me, and neither of us will be alone." Ahmanet discontinues her remorse. I can sense it in the silence after her speech.

"Or are you just another whore."

A thumping occurs, not from her room or mine. It scurried and caught me off guard as it did Ahmanet. I notice her head turn by seeing her shadow replicate the action; she asked if it was me. She went after the noise thinking it was and removed all attention of where I actually was. Now I could make my way to the staircase for a short while and not be stalked by Ahmanet. I thought of the possibilities of what exactly was playing as my scape goat and couldn't come up with a salvageable one.

There was a couple of elevator shoots in a lobby-like place, obviously all in usable but a good sign I'm near a flight of stairs too. At least I thought so but didn't come across any in the section. Come to think of it, I do not remember passing an elevator when I first came to the basement. I should have thought of that beforehand, but the lobby felt safe and empty of hidden dangers. Nothing was heard or seen. All excluding the howling of a wolf.


	12. Secret Room

The lobby was a total dead end. With unworking elevators and not an emergency exit in sight, I would have to u-turn to find the staircase. I did not want to go back to where I can get myself into more trouble when the lightning in a bottle that was my escape happened. The sequences that led to bring me here were practically planned in the mind of whatever angel is watching over me. It would be ungrateful to gamble with that luck.

Fortunately for me, yet another air vent presents itself to me. An agape mouth with the cover detached, low to the floor... it felt too good to be true. I wish I had to privilege to act on my suspicion. My refuge now depends on this airway that will promisingly lead to the first or second floor. Or at least take me away from the chaos of the basement. A warm zephyr welcomes me and comforts my chilled legs. I wanted to bathe in this air like a hot springs after a snow storm. I could only imagine what room the channel will take me too. I ducked into the vent, soon to find out halfway in that I had to climb vertically. Which I did by scaling it foot by foot and a back against one side. It made my shoulder blade sore to constantly press them against a hard surface to support the rest of me. My knees scraping during the rigorous climb. I took wearing clothes for granted; I thought the worst of it was the humiliation. When I reached my destination, indicated by a yellow light, I sat down and licked the wound on my kneecap.

The light was connected by the wick of a candle that was barely melting. Someone made themselves occupied recently, leaving a mess. Food taken from the minibar was laid out like a picnic on the floor. There was enough to last one person for days, so I didn't feel guilty taking some for myself. Half of the egg salad sandwich I saw wrapped up sloppily was my first choice. I breathed it in my stomach along with a club soda from the minibar, I don't eat eggs in general but it was mouthwatering. Now that my hunger was out of the way, I can focus. Papers scattered over the desk in recognizable folders. Between being forced to organize paperwork between shifts and angrily digging through a locker that was flooded with them, how could I not notice? The only papers I did not see before now were these sketched pieces. They were less like clinical portfolios and more like artwork. I took one off the table... three crooked markings were buried into the wood where the paper was placed.

_"Raami", a concept art_

_Image: Small eyes - serious but joyful, a long dipped nose, curly short hair - black or brown, a thick mustache and beard, age is somewhere between 35 and 40_

I'm captivated by the replica - it looks identical to the ghost man who so randomly showed up ever since I left the electric chair. At first I wasn't so sure because I was used to the image of a blue transparent person floating around. On paper, he is a human. If it was not him, I had no clue who else was it supposed to be. I took another drawing that had another old face.

_"Jekkly (left), Hyde (right)", a concept art_

_Imagine: Two men with the same brown hair on head and grey hair on face, heavyset body, large head, but Hyde is corrupt as shown his demonic eyes and hellish white skin_

Maybe the hysteria is playing games with my head. Jekkly, Henry's surname mind you, looked exactly like Henry. And Hyde looked like Henry too; whoever drew these knows things that I have been wanting to know since the beginning. I do not know if I was feeling curious or uncomfortable. Eitherway, confusion was all that came out of the realization.

There's other sketched caricatures but I didn't draw a connection with any of them other than the two I looked at. One of the art pieces was a werewolf in mid growl, maybe the artist was just a monster movie fan. That theory was conjured by me trying to be optimistic. There was a sheet sticking out of its folder, the corner peaked out and showed a portion of a photograph. The only other familar face in the secret room was Ahmanet's. Ironically, what she looked like during my first impression of her. No writing scribed down her face or spider-like eyes - she even looked pretty. Her long bristled eyelashes and chiseled face, why couldn't she just have been a model? Not only was it such a waste of good genetics, it would be better for everyone involved to have her not hurt people.

I wasted no time reading her profile obsessively. I wanted to desperately know her story before she was committed. The issue was that it was not her profile, but a transcript from one of her sessions. Like an interview of some sorts. Some of her dialogue seemed to be a response to what her assignee was asking. It was vague and in conclusion I was only sure of three things: she had parental issues, anachronism issues, and a bad case of Taphophobia. Ahmanet continues to be a mystery to me, if they gave me the chance to speak to her I would elicit an answer or two. Or perhaps have fun listening to her.

Beneath the candlelight was moonlight, it gleamed from outside a little window with wide bars across it. Last time I saw the sky, it was a blue that went turquoise by the touch of a blazing sun. I could not believe it was night as I assumed the world froze in time by the noon when the blackout struck. The sky and earth doesn't care about what went on in some building in Egypt. And neither does any person who is unaware. Looking at the stars made me feel so alone. So I stare at the sand, an obnoxious little car parked nearby. The wheels were bigger than its hood and trunk. Despite the car keys not somewhere back in Henry's locker, not somewhere in this little room compartment I would never find otherwise, but they were also not pushed into the key hole to start an engine. That means there are still around here.

I onced over the garbage, sheets, and food for the keys. I made myself sure that I didn't overlook any important items and left. The break was much needed but yet my heart still patted rapidly from my near death experience. My stomach was full and my hydration was salvageable, I had enough energy to navigate for a good few hours more. I wished the window had no bars on it and instead a pane that is breakable. But going down the vent was easier than going up it. All I had to do was slide and stop before I hit the bottom.

When the time was right, I spread myself across all four wall to break the fall short. My legs extended towards the exit but hit a wall. I switched sides so I was headfirst and can see what interrupted me. The air vent cover was miraculously screwed back on tightly.


	13. Good, Bad, and All That You Got

The pleasant air that warmed my skin now boils me. I feel like a gerbil in a closed off tube as I drum on the noisy tin walls. I think how I could have fell for such a stupid trap, and if it wasn't a trap in the first place, then I put myself in a stupid predicament. Was it worth it? The food, the pictures, seeing that my dream getaway vehicle hasn't budged? It doesn't mean anything, the bumps of the cover walled me into the vent. I kicked it but my feet were cut from the edges and too un armored to support a stronger push. I face my feet to the back again and decided to use my hands with no difference in results.

A ticklish sensation is on my ankle, so weightless I had mistaken it for the air stream. It fell on me with a quiet "hssss" and irritated the cut on my toe when I shifted my legs. I change directions of my flashlight and see a miniature waterfall of a substance covering the lower half of me. It was dry and grainy, and made of small enough parts to get stuck inside of the small creases of my skin. The stream is weak so I didn't fell immediately threatened by the feeling of getting buried in sand. That is, if I'm not going to be stuck for a while.

Lips are pressed up against the bars of my claustrophobic cage. Round pretty lips but emitted a breath that stunk worse than garbage, a speckle of a gold dot glimmers between them from the upper teeth. They wanted to kiss me. Or to chew me up. The lips rolled down the bumps and purred words meant for another.

_Set, she is with us now. I can hear her hitched heartbeat deep within her bones; I would take her now for you... If that bastard didn't make me lose your dagger._

So - Ahmanet was chasing someone, and that someone was apparently ballsy enough to pick a fight with her. I'm glad she lost that horrible dagger that would end me. I wipe my sweat muddying forehead, sweat that perspirated from the heat and tension. The fact that she didn't have a weapon on her person took my anxiety away. Put me at ease, even. She wouldn't kill her precious bride (Chris Vail's phraseology, not mine). Correction, she wouldn't kill me on purpose. In her tormented, shambled mind, there was a prophecy for me to be fulfilled.

If I had to use my bargaining skills to get her to help me, so be it. Even if it means playing house with Ahmanet. Queen... no queen... she is the most evil thing raised on the edge of Set's grounds. She's good, she's bad, and she's all that I got.

No deals were necessary, she said and looked at me with half-lidded, bored eyes. I was her lover and she will bring this world up in flames if I would like. A good sign, her agreement was a good sign for me. I went to take my pocketbook but took a hand of air, I forgot my purse up the vent. The silence is awkward between us as I watched her waiting stoic stare. It rested until I asked permission to retrieve it; Ahmanet allowed me to, but I could tell she was suspicious. I swear I wasn't up to anything, at least not yet. There was no emergency escape up that vent. No matter how much I wished there was.

One rigorous climb latter, no more painless than the first, I see my bag hanging off a hook in the wall. I searched it for my flash drive but Nick's picture came along with it by getting caught between my fingers. The photo was taken when he was smiling at the camera with a grin that never dropped. But now he frowns at me, disappointed. I rubbed onto the wall to straighten it out and fix any wrinkles. The Polaroid was as flat as a board. I was not mistaken as I look closely and hard at Nick's limp lips that seemed to never moved. Yeah, I think I'm going insane. Especially after my decision. My kiss pecked him and covered his whole head, apologizing meekly to my first spouse. Forgive me.

I slip the drive between the holes of the vent cover. I didn't know what I was expecting her to say as I explained my dilemma. Probably to throw it like she did with my wedding band, trying to magically divorce me and my husband. What I needed to do was explain steadily. Starting by why I was here, using untimely words to let her get the point. The drive was called a "message", the dune buggy was a "ride". Ahmanet's clawed hand closes over it and told me to stay here as she delivers it for me. I bit my lip with a wince. Trying to get across that only I could access the message and need to leave here. She refused, saying I would run away

"I cannot have you run away. Your place is here. Once we change this strange square pyramid to Set's liking, it will be your kingdom."

Damn it, what else should I say? It's like making a deal with the devil and him not doing his part. Wait... Change the building. Power it up, I wondered if she could do that. That was the first question I wanted her to answer; can she, at least partially, fuel the electronics that lost all their juice leading to the blackout.

"Like this?" Ahmanet asked and touched the wall which I was sealed in. I wasn't sure what she was attempting... until my flashlight started buzzing. It went on and off and on and then off.

I told her yes. And she switched my light back on. This is what I wanted, I kept telling myself. She will power up a computer, any one, and I could finally finish what I started. And all I have to do is sell my soul. To put top this with a cherry, I made a vague statement about her father that was inspired by my profile reading. "What did he do exactly?" was how I phrased it.

Her eyes rounded and actually seemed affable. "I... it took so long to realize what was happening. I thought he loved me, but then I realized what happened. It was a different time... And I was forsaken by him."

Nodding my head, I carefully checked for her brief change in character. Almost in pity, even though her remarks were just as cryptic. As long as I made it obvious that I was on her side, I was safe. In a lot of ways— I was on her side. As I was escorted to the nearest computer or computer room, I let her air out her pain to me.   
 

 


	14. Email Sent

A window of brightness spreads out before me. By sinking her hand against its head and no button pressing, Ahmanet has booted up the dead computer back to life. She escorted me to the computer room where I normally was busy at work in my cubicle. Each desktop was shut off with not a surge of electricity to their system. I was lucky to have her; coming here alone would have been a nightmare of a hike. Every monster that came in our way yielded and submissively bowed on the floor in our presence. The occasional aggressor was put in their place by Ahmanet, who only had to hiss like a snake to their face as a warning. No one was stupid enough to fight her. Including me.

I smoothed my skin over all the sides to identify a USB insert socket by touch. When I think I have, I guided my memory stick into it. At first it won't connect to the dashboard - I must admit I felt sick from the thought that fitting it inside was impossible. But then I flipped the flash drive to its other side and was able to slip it in with no issue. I needed to stop jumping to conclusions. Whenever something came easy to me, I assumed it would self-destruct in my face. This moment was an exception; my email was displayed on the screen clear as a bell, exactly how I left it. I've waited for this for so very long and all it cost was selling myself to a ancient witch.

Speaking of which, Ahmanet stood behind me with her arms crossed over her chest. Her colorless skin was firm and new patches of it filled the missing cartilage of her nose and cheek. The previously clumpy hair fell down her wide shoulders with shimmering clean follicles as black as fine ink. She remained a shadow of her former self but this was the most human as she looked in a long time.

"Jen...niffer?" Ahmanet sounded out.

Holy shit— she is reading my email. I minimized it while holding in my breath as I assumed the worse. What if she read the parts I was trying to edit in, like how I requested reinforcements as soon as possible? She wouldn't allow this if she know what sending this message out would mean. This empire will be blown down into pieces and the accursed grave beneath it. That is, if I'm not dissmived as a massive liar.

"Your name, it is Jennifer?" She asked unassumingly.

I nodded and said yes out loud in case she didn't understand the gesture. Then again, she can read and speak English with no problem. I attempted to sidetrack her with questions as I precede to revise my email. When I wondered how she can read so well for an apparently undead princess from the B.C. era of Egypt. Ahmanet stumbled to find a word that wouldn't offend me when she explained why that was the case. She called "my language" simple, fast and effortless to learn. I wasn't offended as she had the right to think that when she has an age old language to compare English to. I can only read a few words and barely understand it at all.

I hoped Ahmanet didn't pay attention as I rushed to add this segment.

_There has been a change of plans, I've been founded today by the boss but then the entire facility powered down and I was able to escape. The operation may have not been a success but there is a new threat that is far more dangerous than anyone can imagine. Send tanks, bring the chemical called mercury as well. I'm afraid I have no time to explain all the details but come as soon as possible._

My tiny cursor dragged over the "send" button. A heavy sigh heaves out of me and cleansed all the negative energy from my lungs. It took so much stress just for me to type a few words and a double-click. Yet my hand was stagnant on the computer mouse, the skin around my neck tightens like a fist. I pick up my head and see a darkened figure looming above my computer. Beady pearls of eyes stuck out against the shadows that shrouded half of the face. The other half was illuminated by my screen. I muttered "Raami?" to see if he would respond to the name. Ahmanet turns her head to me once more, I would worry for his wellbeing if not for the fact that he was a ghost.

"Don't do it, bad idea, bad idea," he reprimands.

He sounded a lot like Chris Vail than Raami. Raami spoke with an accent similar to Ahmanet's while Chris had a heavy American accent. Taking that into account, I spot the fair colored whiskers on his chin. I guess he figured out how to leave the underground sand tunnel or passed on to the other world. He seemed translucent and the wall of my cubicle is viewable through his body.

Vail shakes his head. "More people will die. Set cannot be stopped."

I scoffed in his face; there was no way I am abandoning my objective now that it lays in my hands. Officials greater than me will handle this, Channelers or whatever will find a supernatural solution. Maybe I'm kidding but what else is there for me to do?

"The only one whose gonna get killed is you. You will lose everything."

Vail was right but I did not care, I clicked "send" before doubt can bite me. I sat back in my seat and sighed in satisfaction. The ghost shakes his clear head as disproval of my choice, brow low and a tight frown. He can make all the faces if he pleases. I told him it wasn't about me anymore, no matter if I am killed with the rest of the beasts. It's not about me anymore. It's not about me anymore. It's not about me... anymore.

Ahmanet quirked an eyebrow. "What is wrong?"

She did not see who I was speaking to, this ghost was only visable to my eyes alone. He faded way into the wall behind him and now neither of us can see him. I played along with Ahmanet and told her talking was required for this particular message. She believed me of course. I informed her that it has been successfully delivered and my favor was fulfilled.

"Excellent," she said and held my back as I stood from the chair.

Her possessive hand cupped me from behind as I am being lead out of the computer office. I am confident I had made the right decision. Though I might regret it after what she does to me.

———

Even though I was no longer naked, I felt more naked wearing that dress hanging around the storage room than when I was actually running around with no clothes. It was a attractive gown formed from strands of Egyptain cotton, the collar was bejeweled and matched the wrist bangle. My greasy hair was washed in a water bowl immediately along with the rest of my filthy body. Ahmanet cleaned my hair herself but I'm glad she had the respect of my boundaries to allow me to bathe myself. I enjoyed a quick sponge bath and wrapped myself in a dry towel. Maybe this arrangement was not so bad after all; she took very good care of me and as long as that dagger was separated from her, I wasn't afraid anymore.

The princess gown I was forced to wear hugged around me and fit like a ring on a finger. My bare shoulders were nuzzled by Ahmanet in adoration, she purred like kitten as she rubbed her face all over me. Her cheek ended up on my cheek and her eyes were beginning to open. They were narrowed in concentration, I merely stayed put. I belonged to her... for now.

"Setepai-i," she whispered, "my Jennifer."

Her hand explored more than my shoulder. They went down to my backside. Not a tight grab, but a gentle pat. Ahmanet withdraws it much to my pleasure. The simple touch made me feel degraded even more so.

"No. Not until after the pact is settled."

I think she meant consummating. Thank goodness, I don't have to sleep her. I couldn't bear the thought of having her grimy body against mine. Not only would that be revolting, who knows what diseases she could transmit to me? I wasn't really sexually or romanticly attracted to women in the first place and I certainly wasn't attracted to living mummies.

No consummating did not stop her from kissing me, I had to grin and bear the disgust. Her claws held me from under my chin and prompted me to look up at her. Her lips part slightly and the tip of her venomous tongue peaked out to lick them. It was just as blackened as I remembered when it sedated me into a deep sleep. This time that effect won't have its hold on me but the kiss will be anything but pleasant. I let her lean into me and melded the dead mouth into mine.

Her lips were dry and salty and rough. Ahmanet handled me carefully but there was still friction that scrapped me. I sucked her face to return the affection, which thrilled her greatly. The bangle clipped on my wrist fell close to my elbow when I brought my hand to her cheek. She copied me and grabbed mine, my other hand sneaked between us. Ahmanet didn't batt an eye but pulled away from our make out. Her many pupils dart down at her own bounded chest, and then up. The eyes were unamused even though the invincibile Princess was virtually unharmed.

Seeing how the results were not what I wanted, I pulled Set's dagger out of her bones.

 


	15. Death of the Mummy

"Whore of Babylon! I am going to rip the womb out of your rotten gut!"

My skin is dry and pickled with goosebumps - I have made a terrible mistake. A grave, stupid mistake. It would have saved me the trouble if I simply hoarded Set's dagger until the police arrives. Jennifer, you just had to play the hero. You just had to try to take on Ahmanet yourself. Now she chases me with merely a shallow cut that I scratched into her with the blade. I made the educated guess that it was the only way to kill her, but Ahmanet remained virtually indestructible. 

She walked languidly imposingly slow. Anger has her too weighted down to run, the festering rage has her moving like she's maneuvering through molasses. And yet no matter how fast I run, no matter which way I go, she was always right behind me. But there was one place where she cannot follow me. Yeah, that's where I'll go.

"You are nobody's chosen; you do not deserve my power, you do not deserve my love."

Ahmanet's control over her surroundings became more apparent, which begs the question why she has only started to do all of which she did. The glass bulbs above me shutter with a loose electrical source. I can see where I was heading but only between every couple of seconds. The timing was recorded in my mind and if I was off by a millisecond I'd land smack down beneath the hole in the lockeroom floor. 

"You do not even deserve to live."

Before, everything she has said was faded from our distance. I heard her toss  
misogynistic slurs and threats subdued into an airy wisp as if she was talking to me in a dream. Ahmanet now was closing in on me, I couldn't interpret her as a figment of my imagination. 

The bulbs managed to keep their energy longer than periodically. But the hole is shrinking before my eyes - leaving me little room to hop into it. Two halves of a wall formed by particals of dirt and sand has risen up and are gradually closing together like giant weaving hands. I could not make it through the threshold of the gap, I could only stick my hand out. Seeing as I was strep for time, I made a risky decision. I weighed Set's dagger with my hand; it's heavy but light at the same time. Weathered with age, reddened with the blood of sacrifices. Today, it will be gone forever.

I flung the wretched dagger in the Mercury-caked hole where it came from, I took it right back to its tomb. It may not be my temple to keep me sheltered from Ahmanet, but at least she will never use her knife ever again. She is taken aback with a yelp, her disbelief is palpable. The evil eyes were opened wide in what seemed to be a rarity. When I thought it was impossible to anger her worse... I successfully angered her worse. Her black eyebrows are lowered on her scowling face like arrows. Sorry mummy, no more knife for you.

Ahmanet had me backed up against the wall and I ducked out of the way of her powerful fist. A miniature crater was dented into the dense bulk by her swing, my face would be caved in if I had stayed in the way. With a deep growl she watched me flee from her fury, the emergency sprinklers activate under her presence. I lift up the end of my gown as I run across the wet floor on wet feet. My hair clings to my back where it's kept out of my eyes; an object sweeps to my toes on its side, the water bottle filled with mercury that I so foolishly forgotten. I saw an opportunity and took it, tossing it in Ahmanet's way. It cut through the air in a rapid spinning motion but the undead queen chopped it like it was only trash. The bottle bounced off her and it swirled back towards my direction. I didn't bother throwing it again and just focused on getting the hell out of here. 

Thrusting among the water, I have found a room I have not ventured into yet. It located behind the big black door at the cooking station room; I've confused it for an elaborate cabinet to hide in but found myself in the boiler room. Embers ignighted the area which I found too open for the typical boiler room. The fires were weak being rendered useless from the blackout. They exposed a terrible image that sunken in the water that leaked past the door. 

I am surrounded by even more fallen victims of Ahmanet; the huddle I have seen back at the storage room was but a sample. A molehill to a mountain that I am standing on. Piled high, high to the ceiling. She is an absolute monster. Far deadlier than the awful men who put me in this business of crime in the first place. The corpses kept their clothing on their backs, suggesting that they weren't killed accordingly like her "chosen ones". In the spand of a day and a half... she annihilated all of her inmates in her ward. And then some.

One body, an ex-security guard, has something hanging down from his cold little finger. At first, I assumed it was a brass ring. Now I can clearly see an extension dangling from the hoop. A reflection of the flames in displayed in the piece. I decided to give it a closer look and was not disappointed. He was yet another subordinate of Henry's, sent to fetch his keys. "Timothy Salt", as said on his identification card, came the closest out of the rest of his helpers. If Ahmanet hadn't got to him first, Henry would have escaped in his car. Timothy's deceased fingers were stiff as I spread them apart, constantly afraid I would break one off. 

I was given a graceful but strong bop on the head. Ahmanet battered me into the stream, my own blood floated around me. She beaten me to a pulp of sinew with each hit making me feel like parts of me were coming off. Both of my eyes were clamped shut by blinding bruises. 

"Over and over," Ahmanet begins, "you thankless mortals betray your future queen. Well, no more."

She picks me up by the neck to check my consciousness, our faces are inches apart. Ahmanet sneers at the bloody drool that I hacked up, she pushes me down again in the water that was deep enough to reach the hips of a small child. And it certainly was deep enough to drown me. 

"Go swim with the others." She pinned me below the surface of the rising stream. 

My stammering legs are tangled up in my dress; my feet were clawing At Ahmanet, rather fruitlessly. A knife of supernatural value could not stop her, my kicks won't even buffer her. Her iron vice kept me in place until gurgles came out of me like blue balloons. She will not stop until all the air within me is depleted. I fought to keep myself from drifting off to sleep but I am waterlogged beyond my efforts. 

The boiler room catches fire, it was bound to happen. Luckily no explosions occured so I'll die by drowning instead of burning. Anything was better than burning alive. The dry corpses neighboring us are the first to roast, Ahmanet and I were safe in the water. We won't be safe for long, I think. Ahmanet's unearthed connections were causing the room to break into shambles. Sand busted through the cracking ceiling and rained onto us, inviting rubble and wood. Decrepit pieces of the building are next to fall, much to my impending doom. I will be crushed into mincemeat just when I was so close to becoming free and unscathed. 

I attempted to reason with Ahmanet, telling her that we needed to move out of the way of where they were landing. She was too set on killing me to care - her ambition will be her demise. A hurling collection of junk pummels her and I was able to slip out of her hands before I would be buried with her. I sucked air sucked down my throat greedily.

The waist up, she was alive. Every part of her before was turned to dust by the collapsing room, whatever lied in the room above us came crashing down and joined the pile. Ahmanet had the strength of a hundred army men but was at last torn apart one by one. And she knew she was done for; the fierce eyes meeting mine are gentle with defeat. I found them to be remorseful, therefore making me feel remorseful. I wish I could protect her, as asinine as that was. 

Ahmanet's hand curls around my ankle - not to trap me, but to alert me for an important statement of some sorts. Her breath hitches, in a very human way, and she says with tender sadness, 

"We...we could have been... happy."

My foot was freed and I backed away from the incoming unidentifiable object heading towards Ahmanet. Her head is ultimately flattened beneath it.


	16. Tomorrow is Another Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone Run, Girl, Run is finally Done, Girl, Done lol. And just in time for Halloween. Sorry if I rushed too much with update but I wanted to have it finished so I can move on to other stuff. There are other ideas for Mummy fics that I have in mind but we'll see. Thanks for reading, ily

The unruly fire spreads over to the heap that has crushed Ahmanet. She's gone for good, it's plain to see. Immortality aside, she was still a dead body that could be grounded into ash. Perhaps she was still alive, or un-alive, and was stuck underneath. I may have grown somewhat attached but she wasn't my problem now. She won't be hurting anyone anymore.

I twist off the keys that were raveled in Timothy Salt's spidery hand. And was on my way before I could be eaten away by the flames. The bottom of the dress Ahmanet put me in would be first to catch fire but was soaked with the floaded water. Funny how sprinklers went off in every room except where the fire actually was. 

Without Ahmanet, my journey changed and was infinitely easier. It soon came to an end, I made it upstairs on my own. Most of the lights were coming back on throughout the facility. And no sprinklers were activated anywhere upstairs, I was given the chance to dry off. It's not as hard to see my path when I constantly didn't have droplets spraying in my face, especially when the path is not shrouded in darkness. Unlike the basement, I have known the first floor by heart like a song. Make a turn, straight down, turn right and I was at the entrance. 

"Jenny!?" Said whoever stood by the main entrance door, and now was moving towards me.

It was Henry Jekkyl who was my company, but there was something unusual about him. It was made obvious when we were face to face; his disposition was ghastly and his eyes were totally blank. He has always been a suspicious figure but I did not know he was one of them. 

Henry took me by the arm and screams, "you're behind this—I should've killed you—look what you've done!"

And that's what I did - I observed the mess that was my blame. Red-blue lights flicker outside the entrance door, incoherent shouts were made by hopeless officers. Was I satisfied? Regretful? I neither knew how I should feel or what I was feeling regardless. They shot their guns around where I couldn't see any could only imagine what war I've Kickstarted.

While I wasn't paying attention, my neck is touched with a sudden sizzle that caused me to suffer spasms. The pain wasn't pain but rather an extreme discomfort that made me jerk around on the floor in a body I could not control. I wasn't able to feel my face, or anything else after the jolt has taken me. Henry has a foot locked on each side of my waist with an emotionless glance; the hand that should have been held out for me to pull was carrying a taser. 

\-------

The nagging thought that I have been apprehended by the officers woke up with me. But my sleeping body was taken good care of by those who have handled me. My dress was not any dryer which suggests I overestimated how long I've been out. I woke up sitting in a chair, posed like a doll. I have been here before, I sat in this chair, I climbed that vent. The room I entered when running from Ahmanet now was lit with more than a single candle. 

Henry is the only other person with me, as cruel of a situation as that was. His hard face made a reflection in the glass dome he was inspecting, although not facing me - he looks straight at me. The demonic features he posseses from before never stopped haunting his human shell. But when he opens his fanged mouth, his voice was indistinguishable to always.

Henry chuckles, "'heard you stopped The Mummy, congratulations; you may have stopped the queen but the ants carry on marching. Set has other followers serving him."

Like you, Doctor Jekkly, or Mister Hyde? I spat at him coyly, his expression changes greatly. Henry cleared his throat to regain his cool and confirmed my accusation with a smile. He flashes his portrait, which showed his monster side and his false self side by side like a before and after. It was taken from one of the pictures I was looking through and revealed his darker connections. The evidence, red flags, nothing lead me to believe my boss was anything more that a greedy S.O.B.

"And as we speak, your friends are pitted against those followers. They don't stand a chance."

I look downward in reflection over all the choices I have made. The email in particular. I never considered that sending it would have put more people in danger. All their ammunition would be wasted on the walking dead; the only reason I was saved was because they think I'm their queen. It was more likely than not that my request for mercury wasn't fulfilled. Whatever I've started, it's too late to fix now.

Reflections of Henry are cloned across multiple glass domes, all containing the skulls of primates except for one: a pedestal carries a crooked brown knife. Sand was sticky against the blood splattered edge. It must just be a replica - how could Henry retrieve Ahmanet's dagger? He has the dome carefully picked up and placed over onto the nearest clear space on the busy table. Even more gingerly, he removes the destructive artifact. 

He took my hand and uncurls it wide open, sneaks the handle in my palm, and closes my hand. Henry has secrets he won't share; I pestered his for answers. Any at all. The only fact I've learn were useless to the magnitude of my dilemma. Who cares that this vent hideout was created by Timothy Salt to roost away from the monsters? Who cares that Henry brought me here because he believed the hype that I was the chosen one after all.

I toy with the Dagger of Set, thinking about how I miraculously kept it hidden from Ahmanet when I made the truce with her. She lost it somehow but I discovered it at the bottom of the bathtub I washed myself in. My "angel" left it there for me to find. I took the cue as I was meant to put it to use by stabbing Ahmanet with it in the same way she wanted to stab me. But now... I know what I was really meant to do. 

I look out through the barred window. Witnessing the violence, the gunshots firing away with little results. Those are monsters they are fighting - only other monsters can defeat monsters. With that being said, I bring the hilt of Set's dagger to eye level. I allowed its weight to fall onto me and slicing dab in the middle of my breast plates. My breaths were desperate as I awaited to spot any changes. 

My skin whithers away into the shade of slate, when the color reaches my hands - the fingernails blacken. I couldn't tell if I was deteriorating at rapid speed or evolving. As I tried to take my jerking body over to the domes, I stare into my reflection. My face was perfectly aligned with the skull like my skin was covering it. The insides of the previously empty sockets were filled by my own eyes. The skull takes on my normally blue eyes, first singular, then doubled. My irises looked like they were performing mitosis before me. In a matter of seconds I was just like Henry. Just like Ahmanet. And I would use this power to fix what I've broken.

THE END


End file.
